Prince Rupert Port Authority

Prince Rupert, CA - 2018

Integrated & Collaborative Visualization Platform Drives Scalable and Secure Communications for Growing Canadian Transport Hub

BARCO SOLUTIONS

Products include

OpSpace
TransForm N
Control Room Management Suite
RGB Laser ODLF-721
ClickShare

KEY BENEFITS

Total enterprise solution with complete AV over IP platform
Interoperability and instant information sharing throughout infrastructure
Flexible and integrated source ingest with ClickShare
Low cost of ownership
Working with pre-validated systems as they were designed to work together

The Prince Rupert Port Authority (PRPA) on Canada’s western coast is North America’s fastest growing transpacific port. The interactive office — responsible for terminal access, operations and security — needed a seamless way to respond to the escalating needs of the facility. In addition, the Port Authority works closely with the Coast Guard, police, emergency services and terminal lease holders, so having an agile and flexible communications system is vital.

The PRPA’s infrastructure consists of a control center with dedicated operations, security and emergency response areas. Operators monitor many disparate systems — often simultaneously and from a variety of locations — and they need the flexibility to respond to the day-to-day activities in addition to any crisis that might arise. In this sometimes chaotic environment, operators need easy-to-use workspaces geared towards better and faster responses and that are scalable as operations expand. As the PRPA leadership looked to prepare for that growth, they realized that their old operations center’s capabilities had reached their limit, and they needed a system that would offer seamless operational collaboration and allow for fast response time and effective decision-making.

In addition to meeting the immediate needs, the PRPA were seeking a solution that was future proof and could be scaled to meet any impending growth. In fact, to realize their vision they needed a media management infrastructure that enabled them to quickly expand the number of operational sources, easily compose layouts of situational information, and flexibly route sources and layouts across the entire enterprise. In short, their complex working environment with multiple office areas required immediate, clear and seamless communication capabilities. Their search led them to Barco’s complete AV over IP platform, which works as a total enterprise solution allowing the Prince Rupert Port Authority to continue to expand its terminals and maintain necessary secure communications, all while increasing their operator effectiveness and efficiency.

Any Source, Anywhere

As the PRPA solution was put into place, the entire operation moved from a room-centric and restricted infrastructure plan to a user-centric solution with an open infrastructure. This was done in large part through the use of Barco Clickshare, OpSpace and TransForm N featuring the overarching Control Room Management Suite which enables easy display wall management, efficient collaboration and fast decision making in and beyond any control room.

In the command room an operator can receive any information — as localized as their own workspace to generalized information coming from a shared resource like the crisis room. This streamlined workflow process allows the PRPA to distribute information throughout the facility quickly and easily. TransForm N and the Control Room Management Suite, in combination with ClickShare, allows for quick and efficient visualization of all available information resources. This collaborative solution enables all stakeholders to share important and sensitive information from their laptops and mobile devices through a secure platform, thus increasing Shared Situational Awareness. The resulting Common Operation Picture is brought to vivid life through Barco’s RGB Laser overview video walls — the newest and best rear-projection solution on the market.

Ultimately the PRPA is achieving better operator engagement and awareness which has optimized response time and productivity. “The [media management infrastructure] is a combined operating platform which is critical for situational awareness… and is a very powerful tool to get information to the people that need it. It’s a very powerful and effective tool.” said Dave Charlton, Director, Port Operations & Harbor Master.

This integrated solution allows for the speedy developments that will accompany the PRPA’s continued growth, making all investments future-proof and lowering total cost of ownership.

Complete and Scalable Growth Solution

This total enterprise solution means the Control Room communications are future-proof. It’s all integrated. A main selling point was that PRPA could move video to and from any display in any workspace area, including OpSpace, visual projection and ClickShare.
Simon Williams – Technical Director at CComm

As part of the turnkey solution Evans Consoles provided Prince Rupert Port Authority, we needed to rely upon Barco’s completely integrated control system. [Barco’s content distribution platform] means data can be shared throughout the building, facilitating communication and therefore the Port’s ability to respond to situations. We knew we could depend on Barco to supply a scalable, flexible platform that also enabled easy process transformations.”
Jeff Fairholm, Regional Sales Manager – Canada, Evans Consoles

This total enterprise solution means the Control Room communications are future-proof. It’s all integrated.

Simon Williams

Technical Director at CComm